PBS: The Weather Underground
Sam Green and Bernardine Dohrn
Filmmaker and former member of the Weather Underground
Wednesday, April 28, 2004; 1:00 p.m ET
"Hello, I'm going to read a declaration of a state of war ... within the next 14 days we will attack a symbol or institution of American injustice."
Thirty years ago, with those words spoken by Bernardine Dohrn, a group of young American radicals announced their intention to overthrow the U.S. government. In "The Weather Underground," former Underground members, including Dohrn, speak publicly about the idealistic passion that drove them to "bring the war home" and the trajectory that placed them on the FBI's most wanted list.
Dohrn and filmmaker Sam Green will be online Wednesday, April 28 at 1 p.m. ET, to discuss the PBS Independent Lens documentary tracing the rise and fall of the late 1960s/70s radical youth movement and their attempts at revolution in the United States.
Submit your questions and comments before or during the discussion.
Dohrn was part of the leadership of the Weather Underground and was considered the figurehead of the organization. She spent the 1970s living underground and was on the FBI's 10 Most Wanted list. Today, Dohrn is an associate professor and director at Northwestern University's Children and Justice Center. Green's documentary "The Rainbow Man/John 3:16" premiered at the 1997 Sundance Film Festival and screened at festivals worldwide, winning the Grand Prize at the USA Film Festival in Dallas and Best Documentary awards at the Ann Arbor Film Festival and the New York and Chicago Underground Film Festivals. Green currently lives in San Francisco and is an artist-in-residence at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts and the Marin Headlands Center for the Arts in Sausalito.
"The Weather Underground airs on PBS on Tuesday, April 27 (Check local listings).
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over Live Online discussions and choose the most relevant questions for guests and hosts; guests and hosts can decline to answer questions.
Washington, D.C.:
Bernadine, do you still actively involve yourself in any protest causes? How do you feel about the war in Iraq?
Sam Green and Bernardine Dohrn: Yes, I work in youth advocacy and justice issues, and teach human rights law. In times like these, I find myself both speaking and demonstrating about the war, the economy, the prison industry and racism.
To me, the U.S. occupation of Iraq is dommed to fail, both in its own terms, as in the reactions it will likely unleash. In short, as well as being even more brutality for the Iraqi people, I think the war has already produced and opposition and resistance that will make the world less safe, less peaceful and less just. Finally, I think the returning vets will play a decisive role -- as they did in Vietnam.
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Washington, D.C.:
Sam, why the Weather Underground? What inspired you to make this film and how easy was it to get cooperation from the former members?
Sam Green and Bernardine Dohrn: I don't have a short answer for "why this film?" I'll try to be brief though: I am younger than the subjects of the film. I am 37 years old. My partner on the project Bill Siegel is 40. I grew up in the 80s. I remember reading something about the group as a teenager, and the story appealed to me. Probably at that time in a more adolescent manner -- the drama and mystique of it. Then about 6 years ago, I met someone here in San Francisco, where I live, who had been a member of the WU. I was very curious and started to go over to his house to talk to him about his experiences. The more I heard, the more interested I became. I was quite struck by the fact that, for me, it was a complex story -- it raised all sorts of provocative and difficult questions for me -- questions about justice, responsiblity, violence and the complex nature of social change. I felt like it was a story that could comment, in a complex manner, on the world today, and was a story that would resonate with younger people. Our real goal was to inspire younger people to think critically about some of these questions and to engage with the important issues of our time.
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New York, N.Y.:
Bernardine,
Do you feel like the Weathermen are generally misunderstood or misrepresented? In other words, do they/you get an undeserved bad reputation? Thank you.
Sam Green and Bernardine Dohrn: The Weather Underground is ususally characatured as "extremely violent" without the content of empire and the black freedom movement. The film I believe redresses this by insisting on the content and then neither glorifying nor villifying the WUO participants. Mostly it seems to make young people want to know more, or to explore the urgent question of what to do today.
Of course the WUO has also been the target of a concerted attack of lies and misrepresentation by the fanatical right wing for several decades. They give good soundbites but are largely wrong.
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Windsor, Ontario:
Mrs.Dohrn
After the Vietnam War ended do you think that would have been any other issue at the time that could have united the movement in the same manner?
Had there been such an issue how much longer do you think that the Weatherman/SDS group would have continued to use bombings as a form of political protest?
Sam Green and Bernardine Dohrn: If there was such a unifying issue after 1976, we could not identify it. It seemed that the economic crisis here and race,class,gender issues were powerfully on the agenda, but neither we nor others were able to generate that unity.
On the other hand, I think the anti-war and Black Freedom movements unleashed progeny --- the womehn's movement, the gay and lesbian movement, the environmental movement, the solidarity movement with Central America, health care, labor organizing --- etc. that have changed the society we inhabit.
It is one of my criticism of the movie -- that it paints such a bleak picture of the 80s when in fact so much great radical organizing was happening.
In any event, I think the Weather Underground was over, and other strategies were essential.
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Frederick, Md.:
Sam,
Congratulations on a very powerful film. I have question for you about the people you focused on in the film. What surprised you most about the people you worked with -- the Weathermen? Did you go into making this film with any preconceived notions as to what Bernardine, Bill and the others would be like?
Sam Green and Bernardine Dohrn: I was always a bit intimidated before meeting the subjects of the film. I worried that they would be strident, harsh, bitter, or judgemental of me. I was suprised on two fronts: firstly, across the board, all of them were actually quite nice! My experience was, and is, that they are all very warm people. The second surprise came from the fact that I had imagined that if anyone would be bitter and cynical it would be these folks. They had put all of their eggs, to some extent, in one basket: "the revolution was going to happen any day!!!!" It didn't happen. I thought that people would be bitter from that experience. But what I found was the complete opposite. Almost all of the people that we spoke with -- and we spoke to many more of the former members of the group than just the people who are interviewed -- are still very much activists and engaged. Sure they're not bombing things, and they definitely don't have the answers -- how to make change overnite! -- but they're almost all still involved with important issues and activism, and more than that, almost all of them are actually quite hopeful. Sure, the world in many ways is going to hell -- but I was struck by the fact that a lot of the former members of the group see a great promise in young people and their smarts and their potential to make the world a better place. Some of that hope has definitely rubbed off on me. I was a much more cynical person going into this project. I have been surprised to hear myself recently arguing for the idea of having hope irrationally.
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Arlington, Va.:
Two questions:
Who funded the Weather Underground?
And, Bernadine, how did your family react to your involvement with the group?
Sam Green and Bernardine Dohrn: Mainly the Weather Underground was supported by friends and supporters, and we worked at jobs that were outside the regular economy (cash paying work). We could not have lasted for 11 years as fugitives without the ongoing support of huge numbers of people -- many of whom did not agree with us, certainly not about everything. One of the successes of the right wing has been to portray us as somehow outside the spectrum of the movement. While that might have been true in the fall of 69 and winter of 70, once we were underground, we were broadly supported.
My family -- ahh, once I had my first child, I realized with the force of a tornado just how difficult it had been for my parents. They always insisted tht I was a good girl, and defended me within the broader family. But they always voted Republican and did not understand either my or my sister's activism. Happily, they lived long lives and I tried to make it up to them.
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Scranton, Pa.:
I liked the "Weather Underground" very much and would like to see it again. Of all the comments, the one that came closest to reflecting my experience during the Vietnam War was Mark Rudd's. His description of years passed during which Vietnam was never out of his mind is how I remember those years as well.
My question: Other people I know who have seen the movie have reported feeling disappointed, and in some cases angry, that the members interviewed didn't seem to feel any remorse for the course they had taken. I didn't see it this way; I thought there was more ambivalence. What do you think, overall?
Sam Green and Bernardine Dohrn: I'm not sure if this question is directed at me or Bernardine, but I'll take it.
When you make a film, it's always a bit difficult to guage what it objectively "says" to a viewer. There were certain ideas and a certain tone that Bill Siegel and I hoped to express. But I'm not sure if that's exactly what people take away from it. This ambiguity is compounded by the fact that people seem to "read" the film in wildly different ways.
We were trying to capture a wide range of feelings from former members of the WU about their experiences. We were trying to acurately capture the range of feelings that we heard from them in the numerous background interviews we did. This range stretches from people who have small regrets but stand by the basic thrust of what the group did to people who think that overall it was a mistake.
I hoped that the film would express this entire range of feeling. Some of the people who are interviewed have significant regrets. Others would do small things differently, but in general stand by their actions.
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Tempe, Ariz.:
For Bernardine Dohrn:
In the context of what you were trying to acheive I can't help but think your slogans and public statements were detrimental to your cause. Educating and disseminating propaganda seems to me to be as important as the resistance itself. Was there ever any thought given to having a non-violent political wing of the Weathermen to educate people about your goals?
Sam Green and Bernardine Dohrn: I think your question is interesting and probably right. Of course we were self-righteous and dogmatic, and those qualities of arrogance and certainty did mean that many people could not actually listen to the content of what we were saying.
On the other hand, we were rallying ourselves and others to be defiant and stand up against the tremendous pressure to just go along, to be polite, to respect our leaders. It's clear now that much of our language and tone were polarizing but today, I sometimes feel that we are all busy trying to understand the "other side" and give them the benefit of the doubt, while the richest country in the history of the world cannot feed its own people or provide quality health care for all or not incarcerate 2 million people --- while spending billions on military conquest and domination.
We did have allies who were non-violent and were in constant dialogue with, for example, the Catholic left which included the Berrigans and Mary Moylan who were also fugitives.
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Coal City, Ill.:
What was the name of the women, whom I believe came from a very wealthy, politically "connected" family from Dwight, Ill., who lost her life making the bomb that was intended for some type of Military dance club party?
I believe in the PBS "airing" last night, a man named Gold was also killed in this accidental explosion. Thank you.
Sam Green and Bernardine Dohrn: Yes, the woman killed in the townhouse explosion was Diana Oughton. Her father appears quite powerfully in the film.
Teddy Gold, who like Diana was also a teacher, was a Columbia graduate who also died. The third death there was Terry Robbins.
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San Jose, Calif.:
Sam. I loved the way you ended the film with the shot of Brian Flanagan on Jeopordy. What a contrast to the rest of the film. How did you decide to end with that image?
Sam Green and Bernardine Dohrn: That was a tough call -- whether to end like that or not. Some people have said that they feel like the Jeopardy clip makes light of the serious nature of the story/film. I actually don't agree. It is a goofy moment. But I've never heard someone say "well, I was really moved by the film and thought that it raised important issues and question, but then that Jeopardy clip came at the end, and I changed my mind completely." For me, the ending of a film is extremely important. The last moment determines the feeling that an audience member will have when they turn to their friend and say a word or two and then get up to leave the theater. This film is extremely heavy and serious. It seemed important to really use any light moment that the story had to offer. I think that the film did run the risk of being too serious. Of overloading a viewer w/ too much. So ending w/ Jeopardy just seemed like a way to end on a somewhat lighter note. I thought that it would help in a small way to make the film resonate.
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Harrisburg, Pa.:
Mr. Green, What projects have you worked on since this film, or plan on working? Have you consider further documentary work on the revolutionary times of the late 1960s and 1970s?
Sam Green and Bernardine Dohrn: Since finishing this film, I made a short experimental documentary about the street-car that passes in front of my house in San Francisco. It's called N JUDAH 5:30. I'm also rolling ideas around in my head for a longer, more experimental documentary about utopia.
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Belen, N.M.:
Recently, several politicians and writers have drawn analogies between our presence in Iraq and our presence in Vietnam. Do you think, with the influence of the Internet and e-mail, to create organizations today similar to WU would be anachronistic? Is your film a cautionary tale of how not to organize a resistance?
Sam Green and Bernardine Dohrn: I think that today will never be like yesterday, nor should it. Of course all empires have things in common, and resistances have similar elements, but we must invent and imagine anew. The internet is a new factor but the primary obstacle to aroused and determined resistance today, as it was in the 60s, is the powerful feeling that what we do will not make a difference.
I just spoke at a grade school this morning. Young people have changed the world in my lifetime, in Birmingham and Little Rock, in Soweto, in Tien an Mien. Perhaps in Seattle. But we are all made to feel powerless.
Of course, in part the film is inspiration and in part cautionary tale. That's why is is effective.
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Cambridge, Mass.:
Bernadine,
What advice do you have for someone who is utterly disgusted and despondent with the Bush administration and the situation in Iraq?
Sam Green and Bernardine Dohrn: I know that you've asked this question of Bernardine, but I can't help but weighing in with my own two cents. One of the things that I got a sense of in researching this project is that the anti-war movement of the 60s/70s was actually much more effective than people thought at the time.
My own opinion, for what it's worth, is that there is a huge movement against the war and that that is at the moment sort of simmering. I think that as things continue to deteriorate, the anti-war movement will bubble up again, and that it can be a powerful force in pushing this country in a different direction.
If you live in the NY area, you could go to the Republican Natl Convention at the end of August. There will be huge demonstrations, and it will be an important opportunity to show the administration and the world that lots and lots of people say no to what their doing.
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New York, N.Y.:
Bernardine, some historians like Todd Gitlin, who was himself SDS President, have accused Weather of hijacking the movement and, in the end, killing it. Frankly, it's hard to imagine how Weather or something like it wouldn't have showed up, sooner or later. But did you ever doubt your rightness at the time? Did it really seem so true to believe in the revolution?
Sam Green and Bernardine Dohrn: The story that we were utterly outside the "mainstream" movement was invented by Gitlin and other academics but given "legs" by the organized right wing. In fact, tens of thousands of people became militantly involved in resistance to empire and to the murderous assaults on the Black Freedom movement. We would not have survived underground for 11 years without the broad and deep support of most of the movement. Even when people disagreed with us, and we often disagreed with each other, we were united in the broader sense. The movement came apart because of sectarian splits that none of us were wise enough to bridge -- and people went off to work in factories, communes, the women's health movement, schools, the democratic party etc. I think we all tried to pull back from our certainty and self-righteousness after the winter of 69-70 when Fred Hampton and Mark Clark were killed by the Chicago police department and the FBI and movement colleagues killed themselves accidentally.
Compared to Europe or Japan or South American movements of the time, the US movement (and the WUO and Black Pathers and Black Liberation Army) were restrained.
Indeed, we did think we were in a revolutionary situation here. Not just us. We were wrong about that, clearly.
I never thought we would be leaving the world worse off for our children.
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Detroit, Mich.:
Groups like the Weather Underground only helped to discredit nonviolent antiwar movements during the 60s/70s. I am of that generation that campaigned against the Vietnam War. The antiwar movement was gaining popularity and I remember that a few people like Jane Fonda when she went to Hanoi and the Weather Underground only gave the Nixon administration ammunition to help discredit the antiwar movement in the eyes of many Americans. The Weather Underground only represented a few individuals, is not representative of the young generation of that time, and is not worthy of time for a program on PBS.
Sam Green and Bernardine Dohrn: We don't agree. Certainly no one became a zealot for the war because of the limitations and weaknesses of the anti-war movement. Flawed we were, clearly. But there is a danger of insisting that there was an obvious "good" anti-war movement, and the "discrediting" anti-war movement. I think Fonda's work with GIs, speaking at coffee houses near army bases, was outstanding and gave hope.
The Nixon administration discredited itself. Even to people like my parents who always voted Republicans. To continue to insist upon an unwinnable war was to sacrifice another million lives in the name of some phony honor.
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washingtonpost.com:
Sam, Bernardine commented in an earlier answer that her one criticism of the movie is: "it paints such a bleak picture of the 80s when in fact so much great radical organizing was happening." Did you want to comment on your treatment of the 80s in the film?
Sam Green and Bernardine Dohrn: Decades, or historical periods, are really hard to talk about because there's no real objective reality -- just a lot of subjective experiences.
It's funny because for most of the film, we really felt like we were going out on a limb in a way -- we were telling someone else's story and that can be a bit nerve-racking. You have to get it right. And we put in an enormous amount of effort to try to do so.
The 80s section doesn't quite fit with the rest of the film -- it's tone is a bit differen. In a way, I felt like that was the only section of the film that was actually done in a first-hand manner. I grew up in the 80s. I was a teenager in Michigan during that time. And that was the way I experienced the decade. Sure, it was a limited and subjective experience. And yes definitely there was a lot of organizing and political activism going on during that time -- activism around Central America and nuclear power. Yet at the same time, I think the feeling that there was a broad movement -- a kind of momentum and energy was not there the way it had been in the 60s/70s. And so for a teenager like me, there wasn't anything to grab hold of. The feeling in the air that I absorbed was that the hippies had tried to change the world in the 60s and that they'd failed.
I think that many people I knew that grew up at that time took on a political attitude in many ways -- we knew that corporations were bad and that the govt lied -- but there wasn't any point in actually trying to make change. The best you could do was just to try to live in a small way that kept your integrity intact.
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Boston, Mass.:
This is directed to Bernardine Dohrn: I was a small child in the 1960s and was always aware of the danger around me. Did anyone in your group ever consider the impact your declaration of war on the United States would have on children growing up and watching this on the news? Please explain.
Sam Green and Bernardine Dohrn: I know that I did not think of the world from the point of view of children. As a mother of three and a child advocate, I see your point. And I regret our rhetoric of war -- we thought we were in a revolutionary situation and clearly now, in hindsight, it was not. But it did seem that way, with cities in flames, youth running for freedom, the US isolated in the world, constraints being thrown aside.
It is painful to have children ask about a violent world, but I think we must find many forms of resistence and keep imagining a less scary world by taking steps to stand up for what is right. I remember when our first child asked me whether everyone who was good was killed (he was thinking of Dr. King and Malcom X and Che I think). It stopped me cold, and we began to use Rosa Parks and Daisy Bates as heros for him. Complicated.
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Athens, Ga.:
This is a question for Sam Green (and my apologies to everyone that isn't a film geek -- this is a movie-maker's kind of question:)
I am curious as to the reason that the decision was made to film Bill Ayers with a baseball bat in hand, as he narrates his memory of the Days of Rage. Was this his decision? The filmmakers'?
Sam Green and Bernardine Dohrn: OK, I have to get Bill (and Bernardine) off the hook on that. My memory is a bit hazy, but I seem to remember that when we did the interview, right before we started Bill Siegel grabbed a bat from his car and handed it to Bill Ayers. I didn't really think much about it at the time. I think Bernardine thought it was a stupid idea. Bill Ayers just went along with it. Bill Siegel can probably talk more about his own thinking with this.
Later, it seemed a bit odd to me. I'm not sure what exactly I think about it.
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San Francisco, Calif.:
One always hears about the revolution of the 60s and 70s.
How would you compare the effectiveness and magnitude of the activist movement in the year 2004 and those groups existing in the 60s/70s?
Do you think your struggle has had a legacy for today?
How would you advice a young activist group to proceed in today's troubled world?
Sam Green and Bernardine Dohrn: One of the things that I don't like about making a film about the 60s/70s is that there's a chance it can play into younger people's feelings that there's no way that we today can compare to what happened back then. Everything then was so huge and dramatic and clear and in comparison, there's so little going on today.
I really think that this is completely not true. It seems important to keep in mind that the Vietnam war had escatated for years and years before there was a huge anti-war movement. With the war in Iraq, there was a huge GLOBAL movement against it before it even started. I also think that young people today are much more level-headed and effective in their activism. The anti-war movement and the global justice movement are sophisticated (decentralized, largely leaderless, broad, largely non-hierarchical) in a way that the movements of the 60s/70s were not.
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Muskogee, Okla.:
Bernadine,
Though I'd probably disagree with you
most of the time, I admire your passion
for what you believe in and your
commitment to children's legal causes,
I'd like to know what went through your
mind that day in 1995, when an American
terrorist bombed the Oklahoma City
federal building. Could or would your
movement ever resorted to that?
Sam Green and Bernardine Dohrn: Like most Americans and people around the world, I was horrified and revolted by the Oklahoma City bombing. McVeigh, we now know, got his training and much of his ideas from the military. He was a racist and right wing ideologue.
After our friends were killed in the townhouse, we were determined not to kill or hurt anyone, especially innocent civilians but anyone! We chose not to be terrorists. It was and is unacceptable.
I've been to the memorial and museum in Oklahoma City and found it thoroughly moving and powerful -- I think your community poured its vibrant creativity and complexity into making an inventive, humane and international tribute to the survivors and victims and to all citizens by an in-depth analysis of the day, the crime and the reaction.
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New Paltz, N.Y.:
I would venture to guess that there are
young activists who, after watching this
film, were most drawn to the
romantacism of the Weathermen's
movement. What would you like to say to
these individuals? Is there a place for
this type of radicalism in the United
States today?
Sam Green and Bernardine Dohrn: I would hope that this is not the case. There is a romantic aura to the group. But we hoped to temper that with the important critiques that are included in the documentary.
For me at least there's a lot to be taken from this story -- there are a lot of lessons. We're running out of time, so I am not able to get into that. But our hope is that the film will perhaps inspire younger activists to think about and debate some of the issues and questions that the film raises and come up with their own answers about how best to proceed.
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Lyme, Conn.:
Ms. Dohrn, I ask this question seriously and respectfully. May I please ask what your personal thoughts were on Sept. 11, 2001? I know you never did or contemplated something at the scale. Yet, did you think what the terrorists might have been thinking, and what was your personal reaction to the horrific results?
Sam Green and Bernardine Dohrn: My response was, I am guessing, like yours. Stunned, horrified, racing to try to take in the implications, the reality, the violation on such a massive scale.
Since we were not terrorists and killed no one, and the apparent perpetrators of Sept. 11 were right wing, religious zealots, I don't feel qualified to even imagine what they were thinking.
What astounds me is that our administration appears, unlike the rest of us who were in mourning for weeks, to have been racing to put out every piece of reactionary legislation and military aggression they ever dreamed of. Yikes.
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